October 27, 1978
A train whistle shattered my slumber. I crawled into my clothes and joined Matt and Paul outside. Together, we ran to the railroad tracks. Our swamp tractor was already loaded on a flatcar just waiting for an engine to pull it to Santa Cruz. We were elated that an engine had arrived. It was not just any train engine, either. It was a wood burning locomotive! I was thrilled. I always had a love for trains, especially old fashioned trains. I never thought I would get to ride on one. This was my lucky night!
We hurried back to our camp and stuffed our gear into our packs and pulled down our tents. We were really going! I gave a final check in the darkness for any misplaced item of mine. I untied the puppies and between the three of us, we managed to get them and our backpacks to the train. Then we waited!
The locomotive had pulled a number of flat cars and box cars into town laden with cargo, mostly for the rail line. Those would be left on this side of the river until unloaded. Others, like the tinder boxcar would be filled with wood to feed the boiler on the way back. The passenger car would stay with the engine. It took some time for the train workers to juggle the cars around, unhook some and couple new ones in, but at last our flatcar and four others were in line and we were ready to go.
Paul and Matt went to ride in comfort on the passenger car. I had been given the task of getting the swamp tractor out of the Rio Hediondo. Paul volunteered to help me. Because of my frustration with the clutch on the tractor, Matt volunteered to return and help me. For that reason, I felt some responsibility to stay with the tractor. Besides, I was the one who forgot to put the puppies on the airplane! I stayed back with the stuff and the dogs.
The engine whistled. I heard the release of steam, the chug, chug, chug of the piston driving the wheels and felt my flatcar lurch forwards. We were on our way to Santa Cruz. Soon, we were crossing the bridge out of Rio Yapacani. Looking back down the tracks I saw pinpoints of yellow light, oil lamps and wicks driving the darkness from the crude houses of the people that lived there. I was glad to be leaving the jungle, but knew I would miss that rustic little town.
I watched the jungle falling away quickly behind us. The cut through the rain forest was like a canyon that trapped most of the steam and smoke from the locomotive’s chimney. For me, the romance of riding the rails behind a steam engine was quickly fading. All that black smoke billowing from the chimney went straight up in the air, then fell heavily upon the cars following it. In just mere minutes my clothes were covered with soot and my hair felt dirtier than it had, being unwashed for days, as we navigated our way through the mud. Were all the fancy passenger cars filled with elegant ladies in silk dresses in Western movies just a theoretical tarradiddle of Hollywood? I did not know, and thought maybe my distress over it was because I was riding on a flatcar in the open. I hoped Matt and Paul were fairing better in the enclosed car.
My understanding was that it would take most of the night to get to Santa Cruz. I decided I should try to get some sleep, but I was afraid of falling off the train in deep slumber. Mud coated most everything that was loaded on the flatcar. I found a clean spot on the trail end of a logging truck that was being sent to the city. Our swamp tractor’s trailer, still filled with our stuff with the aluminum boat on top, was tied down on the truck’s bed. There was a clean area about eighteen inches wide just behind it and that was where I decided to make my bed for the night.
With the clackity sound of steel wheels rolling down steel tracks, the humid night air, and the hard boards beneath me, deep slumber was not a thing I had to worry about. I might have dosed a few times for short intervals, but deep sleep seemed farther away than our destination.
Sometime after midnight, the train stopped. I sat up, undid my “safety belt” and threaded it back though the loops on my pants. There was lots of commotion, men running around with big flashlights, the puffing of the steam engine as it pulled back and forth, the men unhooking cars and coupling new cars into place. The car with all our stuff was uncoupled and pushed onto a side track along with the other four from Puerto Yapacani.
I feared the worst, that it would be left on a side track with me to guard our stuff. There were still people on the train so I still hoped we would all go. I wished I could speak Spanish. People kept coming up to me and talking, asking questions. I caught so little of what they said. Finally, I just smiled and gave a knowing nod of my head, just trying to be agreeable, not having the slightest idea of what I was attesting to. I didn’t know what the train was going to do!
My fears were realized. The locomotive picked up some other cars, but left the five it had pulled from the Rio Yapacani. I was given the promise that it would return and get me mañana. An unceremonious toot on the whistle was all I got as it steamed past me and chugged into the night. No sympathy for me, there!
Matt and Paul went with it. I was now officially alone in a strange town, knowing only a few words of Spanish to communicate with. If I could buy food and soda pop, I could survive, I hoped! It would only be till tomorrow, right?
I was disappointed to be left behind, though. That wood burning locomotive could have pulled me all the way to Santa Cruz. It could, but it didn’t! I did not know the reason why it left our stuff on a sidetrack, or why it would come back to pull us there the next day . I hoped Matt and Paul would make it all the way there, tonight!
More Tales From Green Hell
- https://fillburns.com/2025/07/08/killin-time/
- https://fillburns.com/1978/02/26/if-a-tree-falls-in-the-jungle-and/
- https://fillburns.com/1978/02/09/hypothermia/
- https://fillburns.com/1978/02/10/swashing-through-green-hell/
Writings By Phil 
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